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Whenever the player takes too long to defeat the opposing enemies in either a hallway battle or a room battle, they will suffer Stall Penalty. The Stall Penalty can be either increased stress across the party, or enemy reinforcements. The reinforcements can be composed of any enemies that may appear in the current dungeon, although the pairs always seem to carry a theme (e.g. both having the same prefix, such as "Fungal" or "Cultist"). The purpose of the penalties is to prevent the player from stalling to heal both health and destress before continuing on with the rest of the dungeon.

Reinforcements can be disabled in the gameplay settings under Combat Delay Penalties, however these settings cannot be altered within Stygian or Blood Moon game modes. If you disable reinforcements, then you will not receive the below achievement:

Image Name Description
Achievement30 Strict Mode Complete the game with default difficulty options

Stalling Mechanics[ | ]

  • The Stall Penalty is increased stress across the party, and next turn enemy reinforcements if the player continues to stall.
  • Enemies spawned by the Stall Penalty penalty will not award additional loot.

Conditions[ | ]

  • Stall Penalties will occur if all the following conditions are met for two full rounds:
    • The player has not used 2 or more damaging skills (skills capable of dealing damage, not counting the Occultist's Vulnerability Hex but counting the Jester's Solo).
    • There are 3 or more heroes in the party.
    • There are 2 or fewer enemies remaining.
    • There is no 'large' creature (one that takes up 2 or more spaces) present.
    • The battle is not a boss battle or Shieldbreaker's flashback battle.
  • By using any skill which inflicts damage against any enemy target (Occultist's Vulnerability Hex, despite dealing damage, does not count as a damaging skill), including corpses, hit or miss, twice in a round, the Stall Penalty Conditions will be reset. This means you may stall as much as you like in the remaining current round and the next round, without any Stall Penalties.
  • If both remaining enemies are any of the enemies listed below, then a warning bark (but no actual penalty) will occur after only 1 round and next round reinforcements will be summoned (but no stress dealt) if the player continues to stall.
Enemy Name
Bone Arbalist Bone Arbalest
Bone Courtier Bone Courtier
Bone Rabble Bone Rabble
Bone Militia Bone Soldier
Collected Man-at-Arms Collected Man-at-Arms
Collected Vestal Collected Vestal
Crone Crone
Fungal Artillery Fungal Artillery
Madman Madman
Maggot Maggot
Pelagic Guardian Pelagic Guardian
Pelagic Shaman Pelagic Shaman
Swine Drummer Swine Drummer
Swine Skiver Swine Skiver
Webber Webber

Stalling Skills[ | ]

DLC Icons
The Crimson Court
Exclusive to The Crimson Court DLC
The Shieldbreaker
Exclusive to The Shieldbreaker DLC
Hero Moves DLC
Abomination portrait roster Absolution
Transform
Antiquarian portrait roster Flashpowder
Fortifying Vapors
Get Down!
Invigorating Vapors
Protect Me!
Arbalest portrait roster Battlefield Bandage
Rallying Flare
Sniper's Mark
Bounty hunter portrait roster Flashbang
Marked for Death
Crusader portrait roster Battle Heal
Bulwark of Faith
Inspiring Cry
Flagellant portrait roster Endure
Reclaim
Redeem
Suffer
The Crimson Court
Grave robber portrait roster Shadow Fade
Toxin Trickery
Hellion portrait roster Adrenaline Rush
Barbaric YAWP!
Highwayman portrait roster -
Houndmaster portrait roster Cry Havoc
Lick Wounds
Target Whistle
Jester portrait roster Battle Ballad
Inspiring Tune
Leper portrait roster Solemnity
Withstand
Man-at-arms portrait roster Bellow
Bolster
Command
Defender
Occultist portrait roster Vulnerability Hex
Wyrd Reconstruction
Plague doctor portrait roster Battlefield Medicine
Blinding Gas
Disorienting Blast
Shieldbreaker portrait roster Serpent Sway
The Shieldbreaker
Vestal portrait roster Divine Comfort
Divine Grace
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